A Matter of Love
by captainodonewithyou
Summary: In which Killian is captured and put under a sleeping curse that can only be broken by one certain Savior. (pirate)
1. Chapter 1

She sees him, behind the bars. His body is sprawled awkwardly against the dank, cool stone floor of the small cell, unmoving. Her heart is still pounding with adrenaline from the break in, and she knows they only have so much time. But the moment her eyes land on him every part of her goes numb and her stomach feels like it's going to drop out of her body. It takes every part of her to refrain from screaming his name and throwing herself at the bars like a child.  
"Over here," she forces the hushed words past her lips, calling David to her side. She hears his soft footsteps echoing through the dark chambers, but she's already at the lock, reaching into her pocket for the keys they'd lifted from the guard. Her heart is racing even faster now, and she peels her eyes from his still body as she fumbles with the lock.  
"Let me," David finally whispers, gentle hands closing around hers and carefully slipping the key from her fingers. She can't miss the concern in his voice, and the failed attempt to mask his own obvious fear. She forces herself to steady her breathing, reminding herself firmly that Regina's distraction can only last so long.  
But over and over one thought keeps drowning out everything else. One memory, a single phrase that she'd trusted and believed.  
_ "I'll be back for you, Swan."_  
The lock clicks and Emma pushes through the door before David can stop her. She's not completely aware of what she's doing, only that she needs to get to him. But as she gets nearer the dread already in her gut is spreading rapidly throughout the rest of her, turning her skin and catching her breath.  
He is on his side, bloodied arms splayed in front of him, right cheek pressed to the cool stone floor. His clothes are ragged, coat and vest not in sight. Red scars scathe his arms and peek out from within long tears in his stained white shirt. And she physically aches, in all parts of her, seeing him so broken and weak. When she reaches him she tries to stand her ground, to play it out strong and reasonable. She is, after all, strong and reasonable.  
_ He'd infiltrated the castle to draw the Witches forces away, to give Emma, her family, and the townspeople a chance to make it to the safety of the castle. He did it for her._  
When she falls to her knees beside him is when she begins to lose control. His skin is pale. Too pale, she knows. And she's clever, she does know. She just can't let it be true. She needs to not know, if only for just a moment longer.  
She forgets David is in the room when she fumbles for his wrist, grasping cool and clammy skin and pressing firmly where she's sure the pulse point is. Waiting. But it must not be, she must be wrong, and now she's frantically running her hands to his neck, to his chest, in front of his lips which remain just parted, feeling for any movement, any warmth, anything.  
"Hook," she hisses under her breath.  
It's a joke. It's always a joke with him, some sort of trick. He's fooling her, and she's damn pissed. "Hook," she repeats, grabbing his shoulder now. Surely the sheer panic in her voice is enough to tell him that the joke is over. That she's had enough of his childish games.  
"Emma…" David touches her shoulder gently, voice frighteningly soothing (and when had he knelt beside her?)  
She shrugs him away, feeling again at Killian's wrists. She can hear her own heavy breathing, sense the panic waiting in the wings. She feels the tidal wave behind her, closing in around her. It's been there the whole time. But suddenly it is crashing upon her and she can't breath at all.  
"No."  
All she can do is shake her head as the all too familiar pain jolts back into it's rightful place. Tearing at her heart, churning uncomfortably within her.  
_ The damn Witch did this._  
The realization lights a new fire within her, one that despite it's strength is drowned beneath the intensity of the rest of her raging emotions. She racks her mind, searching for something, anything to fix him. He must be fixable. She can't do this again, she can't lose anyone again. But every thought, every track she follows and every file she digs into all lead to one inevitable truth.  
He's dead.  
The tears burn her eyes and the sob suddenly racks through her body without even consulting her for permission. But she hardly has it in her to care. She feels lost, like she's an empty void that sucks everything in only to destroy it. She is destructive. She did this.  
This isn't how his rescue was supposed to go. He was supposed to be waiting at the bars, to ask her what had taken her so long with that mischievous twinkle in his eye. He was supposed to smirk when she rolled her eyes, but she would've seen the truth behind his oh so cocky composure. The truth that was always behind his facade, hiding halfheartedly behind his flirtatious remarks and eagerness to please. The truth that she should have accepted long before, because now it was far too late.  
The truth that everything he did was for her because he honestly, fully loved her in a way she never thought was imaginable. In a way she'd thought no one could ever feel for her.  
Emma Swan most certainly wasn't one to daydream, but she'd had his rescue planned.  
And he was _dead_.  
"Emma," David again, and his voice still is soothing but now more forceful. "Emma, we need to go. Robin and his troops will have gotten to the plans by now, the Witch-"  
She's shaking her head vehemently, and he finally stops talking. She can feel his eyes on her, she can feel the pity. He's never seen her break. No one has ever seen her break. But the twister roaring within her is too much to hold within her anymore.  
"I can't," the words come softly across her lips, and she surprises herself. Her voice shakes with contained everything contained within her and she's fighting to catch her breath all over again. "I can't leave him, David," she continues, voice gaining only in it's frantic tone.  
He touches her slumped shoulder again, and this time she lets him. His touch is strangely soothing, but something like putting a bandaid on a broken leg it can't do anything for her. She fights to steady her breathing, to regain composure, but every second a new wave of realization soaks her and staying there, lying beside his lifeless body for eternity, seems a very attractive option.  
_Henry_, she reminds herself firmly, _get a damn grip because Henry needs you._  
Her son is all the reality she needs to jolt her, if perhaps faintly, back to it.  
If Robin has already gotten into her chamber and reached her floor plans, the witch knows. And that means that the dungeon will be surrounded, very soon, by a fleet of flying monkeys.  
_ Priorities._  
"Help me lift him," she orders, getting a firm grip around Hook's middle, tugging halfheartedly and getting nowhere. Her heart is racing all over again at how his body shifts limply with her efforts.  
She knows she can't carry him, that he's near twice her own weight, but a small part of her needs it. She needs to get out of the castle, yes. But he needs to come. She glances over her shoulder at David, who is staring at her with a fix of disbelief, and perhaps a pinch of worry.  
"Emma…" he says unhelpfully, for what feels like the thousandth time in the dungeon so far.  
She knows what he's thinking, but she refuses to let it matter. It can't matter because he has to be fixable. She can not bring herself to let go of his cold hand and suddenly a fear swells up rapidly in her chest, a mix of all the nightmares twisting inside of her and tearing her apart. She feels it rising and growing and her heart races and then she hits the tipping point,  
"We're in a damn fairytale!" she cries, and David flinches at the volume it comes out. She cringes and lowers her voice slightly, temper waning minutely, "We— We have to bring him back to the castle. Regina might have a spell, or, or a curse or a magic cow… I don't know! I'm new to all this magic crap, but if you could bring Mary-Margaret back with a fricking kiss there has to—"  
The look on her fathers face stops her dead. A sudden jolt of hope, immediately gone cringe, then she can see a hesitant desire to speak in the way his lips part slightly, then close. He watches her carefully, then glances at Hook.  
"What?" she asks. It's clear that he's thought of something and that he's also strangely unsure of whether to share. He looks even more uneasy, "What is it David? Dammit, if you have an idea-" she hisses, a shade louder than she meant.  
"I do," he interrupts, ever so carefully. She opens her mouth to urge him on but the contemplation in his eyes silences her, "Look, this is a long shot. It's assuming he's under a sleeping curse and assuming it's not too late and assuming you're his—"  
"Can it save him?" she interrupts his spiel, meeting his eyes firmly. She's sure the vulnerability she sees there is echoed from her own face.  
"Assuming—" he starts again, carefully.  
"David!" she urges.  
"… Yes."  
She knows where he's headed, deep down she truly does. The intrigue and hesitance alights within her and she knows but she has to ask anyway.  
"What do we do?"  
"You do," he corrects cautiously, still looking into her eyes, still adding her up, "Em, the Witch isn't stupid. She… Killing him would be a waste of a valuable bargaining chip," he pauses again, and she wants to urge him onward but bites her tongue. Her heart is racing, and she wonders how it hasn't yet escaped her chest. "There's a very good chance that he's under a sleeping curse."  
She knows what it means, without him saying it aloud.  
The uneasiness on his face has multiplied, and she knows he thinks it's a trap. The idea has crossed her own mind as well, but it has also occurred to her that they have an advantage— the witch seems to have no idea that the stupidly gallant knight who'd raided her castle all on his lonesome was of so much importance to the Crown. Screw that, even. She hadn't known that he was important to Emma.  
She doesn't know that Emma isn't one to wait around for a petty bargain when someone she cares for is on the line.  
She looks down at his bruised face, which in her efforts to lift him has ended up just in front of her. If she focuses on the mess of dark hair crowning it, he almost looks as if he is, after all, sleeping. She hesitates and her heart thuds painfully against her chest— a constant reminder that this probably won't work. It's a long shot, but it's also his last chance.  
No.  
It is their last chance.  
She doesn't even bother to hold back her hair as she leans slowly down, towards his lifeless face. Every moment past she expects his soft lips to break into a cheeky smirk, or to part just a hair more to welcome hers. She expects his eyes to open and sparkle with amusement at her predicament, for him to just pop to life and crack a joke and make everything okay again. It's her motivation. She absentmindedly lets her hands slip to his shoulders, her fingers digging into his shirt and his skin.  
His lips are so cold.  
_ Well he's dead, idiot_, she thinks, and suddenly she is considering that she very well may have gone absolutely crazy.  
It isn't a second after her lips press to his that a strange breeze blows past her. A breeze that seems to come from where her lips are against him. She pulls away from him abruptly, examining the scenario and looking for a rational reason for the breeze that has her a bit shocked. But she can only do so for a moment because, as if in a dream or a movie or some sort of fantastic shit that was not her damn life, he gasps. And his eyes fly open.


	2. Chapter 2

For a moment, all she sees is blue. Sparkling, churning, living, blue. And then he blinks and she can only hear the rush of air he swallows and releases, in and out, alive. Alive. He is alive.  
A thousand thoughts are pummeling her at once and as she tries to sort through them and organize her mind so she can make sense of one single thing she only comes to realize she can't. Everything is flying around warp speed and she's only catching glimpses. Her heart feels as if it is beating unevenly, almost as unsure as the rest of her. But she clings to one very solid fact that slowly lifts her from the shock.  
Hook is alive.  
He is lying in front of her, blinking up at her in a confused daze. She knows that he's trying to add things up, she can see it in his creased brow and his troubled eyes that are now trained on her. She abruptly remembers the crying, and runs the back of her hand immediately across her cheeks, hopefully too quickly for his still reeling brain to register.  
Her own brain still is caught in a stupor, still adding and twisting and figuring, and it presents her with another unhelpful nugget, one that she immediately shoves to the very back of the cloud of confusion.  
_ Later._  
There are more important things, pressing matters, and she's sure that everything else can wait because now she's remembering where they are and the situation surrounding them. The dungeon will be raided by monkeys in the next few minutes, and that needed to be dealt with.  
_ But there is only one reason he is alive right now. _  
"Can you walk?" she asks sharply, pushing back everything bubbling inside her. It can wait. It has to wait.  
He is watching her with a strange look somewhere between concern and complete and utter confusion. He begins to lift himself to his elbows, cringing with the effort.  
"How," he pauses, taking a sudden sharp breath. She knows he's hurt himself and his pain reaches her as well, stabbing her heart. She holds out a careful supporting hand, touching his shoulder as he pulls himself into a sitting position. "How'd you find me, love?" he finally finishes, and even pulls off a halfhearted smirk.  
"It wasn't hard," she answers, rolling her eyes. She knows he's tucked a question within the question. He's smart and he knows that something is going on. But she can't bring herself to confront that. "Have a nice nap?" she adds instead.  
He glares at her.  
He's shifting into a crouch, trying to pull himself to his feet. As soon as she realizes it she rises to her feet, offering him a hand that he takes gratefully in his own calloused palm. He holds tightly and pulls hard, cringing all the way up. His hook, she notes, is not on his opposite arm.  
"Alright?" she asks carefully, releasing his hand as soon as he's stable. Hurt flashes just behind his eyes and she chews on the inside of her lip.  
"Never better," he assures her behind a grimace.

"Good," she reaches to her sheath, bringing out the second sword they'd brought and pressing it into his palm, before drawing her own weapon and turning to face David, relieved to no longer stare into the confusion and suspicion in Hook's eyes.  
"Which way out?" she asks, staring hard at her father and hoping he only answers her question. They don't have time for anything else. She can't face the anything else in so little time. She still feels faintly numb from the utter terror she'd been in only moments earlier, and she just can't allow her mind to wander because she knows it'd never come back.  
"We have to take the second route, they're coming from where we came in," he mutters, motioning to the right. He then glances over her shoulder at Hook, "Good to see you again, mate," he says, then looks back at Emma with a touch of confusion but compliance. He doesn't prod her, but continues to the both of them, "Follow me, and keep your swords ready."  
Hook motions for Emma to go ahead of him but she shakes her head. She doesn't want him to fall behind, or injure himself without her knowing. She doesn't want to let him out of her sight again. He hesitates and she can see the uneasiness in his eyes. He's still confused, still debating if he can trust her. Debating whether or not it's a trick, she realizes with a bit of a start. Her heart contracts slightly, and she bites her lip. But finally he sighs and gives in, following David out of the cell and only giving her a small backwards glance. She turns at his heels, hands shaking as she reaches for her sword. He's limping, and she's sure he's hurting much worse than he is letting on and all she can think is what a stubborn jerk he is.  
They hurry uninterrupted for a while, weaving through the halls that David seems to navigate easily. She can hear the monkeys following at their heels, but they seem to drift further and further behind with every corner. She feels her guard going down, just slightly, clouded by all the thoughts and confusion she has shoved to the back of her mind. But then she's watching him and he's is moving with more stiffness the further they go and she wishes she could reach out and offer to help him but she knows it would be strange and awkward for both of them. She can't just watch him suffer (she won't admit its making her miserable) so she steps forward, coming in pace beside him.  
"Swan," he mutters in greeting, and his voice is pained and breathy. He doesn't turn to face her, eyes trained firmly on David just ahead of them.  
"You're going to collapse," she answers, struggling to keep her own voice steady.  
She wishes she could hide from him, she knows that her attempts to camouflage her fear are lost on him. Wishes that he couldn't read every inch of her. He still doesn't look at her, but the power isn't only one way. It isn't hard to tell that he knows she hasn't told him everything. Her heart flips uncomfortably.  
"You haven't much faith in me, love," he says, then finally looks at her with a halfhearted smirk.  
"God, this isn't a joke!" she snaps, far louder than she intended. Both men tense, David glancing worriedly over his shoulder. When she sees she's beside Hook he looks quickly away. She feels warmth rising in her cheeks and forces her voice back down. "Do you want to get out of here or not?"  
For just a moment the fear flashes across his face. Frightened and naive and strangely lost. But immediately he covers it up, hides it behind his mask and shoves his walls up in her face.  
"When have you ever known me to value my life?" he asks, and she wants to punch him in the face and suddenly it's only anger bubbling up inside of her, eating at her sympathy and making her skin feel itchy and hot and _dammit_ she wants to punch him.  
She tries to contain herself, she really does, but her attempts don't even begin to hamper the rage that is encompassing her. All her emotions from the whole month— worrying for him, fearing he was dead, breaking in to find he was dead, and the part of saving him she still refused to think about— it finally hits the roof and so she doesn't hesitate, she can't hesitate, as she turns on him and grabs his shoulders, pushing him to the nearest wall, hard. He humphs in pain and her heart pounds harder but she's already going now.  
"Don't you dare," she hisses angrily, face just a hair from his. Her sword is still his her hand, flat pressed sideways against his chest, and she half notes that somewhere in her rage she'd been lucky not to accidentally slay him.  
She can feel his heart racing under her hand and he's too shocked and likely in too much pain to respond, cringing slightly away from her and the sharp side of her sword that is fairly close to his neck and she can't bring herself to care. "Don't you dare act like your damn life isn't important."  
"Emma—" David has stopped now, and she can feel his worried eyes on them. She ignores him, attention trained entirely on the man she has pinned between her and the wall, faintly aware of the fact that their noses are nearly brushing and that his lips are right there.  
"Since when has my life meant anything to you?" he asks, voice strangely meek.  
He meets her eyes and she's shocked at the coolness within them. She struggles to come up with a response that doesn't mean anything but she can't. Every word seems so mercilessly heavy and her mouth refuses to form anything. She very near growls as shoves off of him, continuing down the hall without allowing herself to look back. She hears him stumble slightly and her stomach flips but she forces herself to keep going. David isn't moving so she passes him as well, but then he snaps out of it and continues beside her.  
"Emma…" he says again, soft enough that Hook can't hear. She ignores him, but he continues anyway. "Emma, don't you think you overreacted just a bit?" she walks faster, but he keeps up.  
"Which way?" she mutters grudgingly when they reach a fork. David motions left, turning, and she follows.  
"Look, it's natural to be scared-"  
"I'm not scared," she says firmly. David takes the hint to drop it.

The rescue team hasn't met up with Robin and his men, as the plan was to each take separate routes back to the castle. No one says it aloud, but it's a clear tactic to minimize casualties that has Emma staying watch every night, worried and hoping the others have made it out alright.  
When trekking or setting up camp doesn't take up every ounce of their concentration, Emma and Hook make a point of ignoring each other. She isn't sure who initiated it but she has no interest in speaking with him anyway. She knows that it's petty and childish, but at least it keeps her mind busy with something. Or rather, keeps it off of something else.  
David hasn't prodded her about it since the castle. But she sees it in his eyes, as he gives her very frequent very worried glances, often mixed with just a touch of disapproval. It isn't a mystery what it is about, but he seems to keep his mouth shut, knowing it is her secret to share, and hers alone. Or so she tells herself.  
But the art of not-thinking about something is contradictory in it's own practice, and more often than not she finds herself stuck in the fog of that cell, thinking through it over and over again and finding herself unable to come up with a solid answer, or a clear direction. It frustrates her to no end, that she can sit there for hours considering one single piece of information, and get nothing from it.  
Part of her, a part that she promptly cuts from the fog-thoughts, knows that it's all simple. Far too simple. It knows that information doesn't belong only to her and that there is only one place to take it, only one answer.  
She's wandering, looking for firewood, when the simple-answer decides to take matters into it's own hands.  
"Swan?"  
Her arms are full of twigs and branches that scrape at her skin, and she's reaching for another when she hears him. She briefly considers ignoring him and going on about her job, but something in his tone stops her, and then something else twisting uncomfortably within her makes her turn and face him.  
"Hook?" his name rolls off her tongue with a strange comforting ease, and she finds herself staring up into his uncharacteristically naive eyes. She catches a slight sparkle within them as he registers her response, as he realizes she no longer is giving him the silent treatment. But it's gone as quickly as it comes.  
He doesn't speak at first, just steps a bit closer to her. His eyes run cautiously over her, studying her. She expects her annoyance to flare, to take over and for her to snap at him and him to snap back and an argument to start all over again. But it doesn't.  
Instead an unfamiliar warmth touches her, and then she's waiting. Waiting to hear him because dammit it'd been too long.  
"I just…" he pauses, eyes traveling uncomfortably about the forest. They land on the firewood in her arms and horror in his own bad manners touches the churning in his eyes as he holds out his arms and takes a half step towards her. "Let me take some of that for you, love," he offers and now meets her eyes again, gently.  
She shakes her head and shifts the wood in her arms, holding it nearer to her.  
"Tell me what you came to tell me," she answers firmly.  
She's kept it at bay but now the thoughts are piercing her mind, the ones that she doesn't want to hear. She hasn't spoken to him and now its something like salt in a wound, but the pain simply isn't there. Like all the hypothetical thoughts she's considered the last few days are being set to reality and it's still the first few seconds before the test is really put into affect and dammit she's being an idiot.  
He's talking now, but she isn't listening. She can't listen. Her head is full of buzzing, and guilt is nipping at the pit of her stomach and she can't take it. She can't do it. She feels slightly angry and it takes her a moment to realize that the upset isn't directed at him. It's more internal and scathing. Her body tenses and she finally sees him.  
"Hook," she says, and her voice is so soft but he immediately falls silent.  
His eyes study hers and wait for her but don't push her and she takes a gentle breath, only to pause and slowly let it out. She's trying to prepare her next words, to ready them in her mind, but there is no way to. She doesn't know exactly what to say, much less how to say it.  
"Emma," he says, voice cutting into the dead silence she'd hardly realized they were in. Her heart shudders, and she didn't realize how he'd said her name, like his tongue could break it, until now. He's still watching her, eyes still gentle. "Perhaps if I finish?"  
His eyes are bearing into her, reading her, and she's not sure she expected anything different, She nods, because that's all she can manage.  
He hesitates, shoulders slightly squared, with those young and innocent eyes that she's almost come to expect. But then he takes a breath.  
"In the castle, when we fought…" he pauses again, eyes drifting to the forest floor and back to her, "It was wrong of me to say such things at all, much less when you'd just saved my arse."  
Her heart races for a moment, and her brain panics, flitting from moment to moment and trying to remember when—  
"I reckon you put a deal of good men in dangers way for me and it was a right inconvenience and I've been nothing but ungrateful," and she can take a breath and try to hold his gaze.  
"We would've done it for anyone, Hook," she tries to let him keep going but can't help herself, "You endangered yourself so the rest of the town could get to safety, did you really think we'd just leave you to die?"  
And that was the wrong thing to say, because now her stomach is reeling and she feels like she's going to be sick, remembering his body lying there. Thinking he'd never tease her like an idiot again. The dread and the numbness is there and then a touch of the need and she feels like she's in that cell, like she never escaped. She remembers lowering her head to his, hoping on all things that his damn eyes would just open.  
She must've paled or froze because when her eyes focus again he's right there, touching her arm, looking into her eyes with those deep blue orbs that know everything about her without trying. Her heart is racing and she faintly tries to pull the firewood closer to her but that's when she realizes that she's dropped it. She doesn't care.  
And the secret doesn't belong to her.  
"Killian," she says, and his face pales before she realizes that she's used his real name.  
But she can't stop, she has to keep going until she says it because otherwise she never will. He's searching her eyes for anything, rubbing her arm gently with his thumb and she doesn't think he realizes he's doing it.  
"I haven't… I haven't told you everything," she continues, and pauses, and curses under her breath because she is not a girl who stumbles over words and because his brow is lined with worry that she didn't want. She takes a breath, reminding herself that she's an adult and that this is dumb. That she can handle a little crush.  
But it's so much more than a crush.  
"Killian," she starts again, now determined to finish. She doesn't like the slight shake in her voice or the unsureness in his eyes but they are all factors and she has to work around it or lie to herself and to Hook forever.  
"When we found you in the cells, you…" she glances at him one more time, because once she says it there's no going back. He only urges her on, "You… you were," she chokes over the next word despite how hard she fights it, "dead," and now her damn lip is quivering and her eyes are wet and there's a tear and she can't even be angry at herself anymore because it's that image again, of him so lifeless and gone gone gone.  
She can only just see his blurry expression through her tears, and the confused creases in his brow are deeper and his eyes wider and he wants to pull her in, to comfort her, but his courtesy gets the better of him.  
"I didn't know what to do and David didn't know what to do and I wanted to bring you to Regina…" she chokes and this is the second time in three short days that she's crying over him, and she's fighting so hard to stop.  
Now he can't take it anymore and gently pulls her against him, running his hand cautiously up and down her back. His nub brushes her wrist (as his hook is long gone, left somewhere in the shadows of the castle) and she can feel how tense he is. But being in his arms is shockingly soothing and she presses her forehead to his shoulder and forces herself to curb the tears.  
_ He's here. He is here now. He is holding you._  
"David suggested something else," she keeps her voice soft, now, partially because they're close and partially because she's afraid anything loud will bring back the flood of tears.  
"What did he suggest, love?" he asks, letting her go ever so reluctantly. She feels cold, looking up at him, his eyes narrowed with what must be concern. "No deals, I trust?" and she shakes her head and he goes back to being confused and watching her.  
She's scared. Her heart is beating a rapid staccato and her lip is numb where she's biting it and she can truly admit that she's scared, and she doesn't want to be but she is. And that's when he takes her hand, softly. She won't look at him, sure she'll break into tears again if she does, but he gives her a reassuring squeeze.  
"You don't have to tell me if you don't wish to, love."  
She can't help but look up at him with a touch of shock. She's sure he doesn't know the significance, not exactly, but he clearly knows the stress it's putting on her and that's enough for him, enough to make him okay with not knowing. Her heart still races, but the scared part of her, the one grabbing at her tongue, is gone instantly.  
It's their secret.  
"A kiss," her voice is so soft, and his expression doesn't change, "I… True Love Kissed you back to life," she repeats, and feels herself tense away from him as she waits for his reaction.  
"Darling, I'm quite sure that True Loves Kiss isn't meant to be used as a verb," he responds after the pause, and looks at her so seriously and she wonders if the gravity of the situation has hit him. But he won't stop staring at her with that badly faked seriousness and his face refuses to crack and he has such a strong will.  
"Damn you," she manages as she breaks into soft laughter, and his face finally splits into a smile upon seeing her own.  
She slowly stops laughing but keeps smiling and she wants to press him, to get a serious answer from him but she can't bring herself to pull the smile from him face. She isn't used to seeing it, not a real one. But after only a few moments it's melting away on it's own.  
"For the record, Emma," and her heart still pounds with how he says her name, "I didn't require a kiss to know you loved me" he isn't trying to read her, he just knows her.  
She tries to think of a snarky retort, but she can't find anything and now her mind is so clear and they are so at ease and he is so alive and so many realizations are hitting her all at once that it just slips off of her tongue as quickly as it forms in her mind.  
"For the record, Pirate," she mimics, but it doesn't come out as teasingly as she intended, "I didn't either."


End file.
